Taking Control
by You Probably Don't Care
Summary: Chloe has lived her whole life without feeling loved. Her mother died, her aunt despises her, her father is abusive & Chloe is severely bullied. When a few students starts attending her school, they make her life even more difficult. Why does she have a feeling she knows them? Why is she seeing things that aren't there? And why does Derek treat her differently from everyone else?
1. Chapter 1

** I think I'm returning to writing fanfiction again. So here's a new story. Maybe I'll start on the other ones again soon. I read over them though, and I'm kinda lost myself. **

** But anyway, here's a little idea I came up with a while back. I've always had trouble imagining Chloe's parents and aunt to be nice people, and I don't quite know why. Even her mom. That's why they are the way they are. **

** I still don't know if I'm making the characters human or not. Let me know which one you'd rather have them be in the reviews if you'd like. Or don't. Whatever. **

** By the way, my pen name is 'You Probably Don't Care' because, I mean, who honestly cares what the pen name is of the person who is writing a fanfiction they're reading? **

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Chapter 1: Broken Home

I was the only child in my family. My parents had wanted, in fact yearned, for a boy, so they were extremely disappointed when they found out they were having a girl. But since my grandfather was so excited to have a granddaughter and my mother was afraid to disappoint him, they kept me.

My father didn't even want a child all that much in the first place. He hated anyone below the age of 21 and thought they were immature, disrespectful brats. He was an alcoholic, an angry man, and was only kind to my mother and his boss. He only tolerated other people.

My mom had a rough life. She loved her mother so much, and adored everything her mother did. But her mother despised her. She'd thought of her daughter as a failure because she had depression and was suicidal. My mother had seen several therapists, but it didn't seem to help her all that much. She stuffed herself with antidepressant pills most of the time.

I loved my mother. I knew how hard she tried, even with a severe case if depression, and wanted her to feel loved. But she pushed me and my dad away.

When I was 8, my parents had gone on a dinner date one night. On the way back home, their car was hit from the side, and my mother ended up dying in the accident. I'd been so crushed when I first received the news. I even went into shock. My mom was no longer going to be there to prevent my dad from taking his anger out on me when he was mad. She couldn't cut my sandwiches into stars anymore, couldn't read me stories. Nobody would be there to take me to the movies once a month.

After she died, my dad started to abuse me. He would get home from work, get drunk, and yell at me about how useless I was and how I ruined his life. His words got more angry, his swings more violent, as time grew on.

Because of his job, we had to move quite a lot, and so I usually didn't make any friends. I had nobody to talk to, and I rarely ever spoke. I became more afraid of men in general because of my father. I know, it's irrational to start fearing men because of one man's actions, but I couldn't help it.

I stuttered a lot. People at school made fun of me for being a pale, tiny little girl with a stutter and for not being too bright. I tried my hardest in school, I really did, but I had always failed to understand a lot of the things I was taught. The only class I had a low A in was English. I barely managed to go into the next grade each year. I had to ride the bus home, so I couldn't try tutoring.

Now, I'm 16 years old. My dad has been abusing me for 8 years, my mom is dead, my aunt despises me, I have one friend, I have a horrible future, I can't get a job because my father won't allow it, nobody loves me, and I'm starting to hate myself.

I'm 16, yet I'm barely 5'1, and I have the body of a 12 year old. I'm extremely pale and have eyes so blue people sometimes ask if I wear contacts. My eyes are too big, really. I don't like them. My hair is a light strawberry blonde color and goes to my shoulders. Back when I was 15, I'd gotten the 'scene kid' bangs because I had thought they were just SO cool, so I now had my hair almost in my eyes. At least I didn't have to poof up my hair constantly or anything. I don't have to even do that much with it.

Today was Friday, and we were having a pep rally at school. That meant I was going to attempt staying in a bathroom stall during the whole thing so I wouldn't have to worry about the whole sitting situation. I was worried people wouldn't let me sit next to them. I would rather sit in a stall than hear people make fun of me for an hour and a 30 minutes.

There was only one person in the school that was kind to me, and that was my English teacher. Mr. Howell. I was allowed to call him by his first name, though. Danny. This was his first year teaching. He was 22, and he was very nice to me. I wasn't used to people being so kind to me. We had formed a friendship over the past few months. We both had a passion for movies and loved all the same authors and directors.

Mr. Howell was my homeroom teacher, and on the first day, he immediately noticed how students treated me and my stutter. Mr. Howell sensed my fear of almost everyone. After homeroom ended, he walked up to me and told me that I could eat lunch with him if I wanted to. He didn't say anything else, simply walked back to his desk after giving me a warm smile.

He was 6'5, and if not for giving me a small smile when I had entered the room that day, I would've been quite fearful of him. He was obviously young, and rather attractive, too. Most girls checked him out and whispered to each other about how hot he was and how big his muscles were and how warm and gorgeous his dark brown eyes were. I just sat in my seat in the back corner, reading the book 'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess (which I'd gotten from the bookshelf next to me, filled with rather interesting books I'd never heard of before).

I remembered our first lunch together so clearly. Him giving me a big genuine grin when he saw me enter his room with a lunch bag that caused the corners of my mouth to turn up into a small smile.

"Hey, Chloe! I'm glad you came. I figured you probably wouldn't want to eat in a huge crowd of annoying sweaty people, so I decided to invite you to eat with me. At least my room doesn't reek of perfume and Axe."

I smiled and shut the door, walking over to a desk in the front row. Before I could sit down, Mr. Howell says, "You can just bring a chair to my desk, if you'd like. You're so far away from me!" He added that last part playfully, reaching his hand out toward me. I gave another smile and pulled out a chair, bringing it to his desk.

As I unzipped my bag and took out my food, he studied me. I didn't feel uncomfortable, astonishingly. Mr. Howell finally asked, "You don't talk much, do you?"

"...N-No, not r-really," I replied softly. I rarely spoke to anyone. I only spoke when necessary. I opened my container filled with spaghetti because, obviously, people bring cold spaghetti to school as lunch and it's a completely normal thing, and got out my plastic fork. My water bottle,filled with sweet tea, was already on the table.

Mr. Howell then said,"Well, it's not like any of the students here I've seen so far are pleasant to talk to, so it's not a bad thing. Almost all my students have been disrespectful this year. And this is my first day on the job, so it's not a very nice way to start out."

"So this i-is your first day as a-a teach-ch-cher? I thought-t you were just t-transferred," I said quietly, jabbing my fork into the spaghetti.

"Yeah. I'm 22, but I'll be turning 23 next May. I'm going to guess you're still 16, right?"

I nodded. "I turn s-s-seventeen i-in March." It's gotten to the point where I no longer cared about my stutter. It had been there for so long I learned to not say anything about it.

"By the way, I hate being called Mr. Howell. It makes me feel old. Call me Danny." He gave a lovely smile that made him look like a model. I felt myself blushing at the thoughts I was having and gave him a small smile back.

"Well, Chloe, what's your schedule?" He inquired after a moment of silence. I unzipped my stained, ripped up, tattered old bag that I'd used since elementary school.

I saw his frown as he noticed the bruise on my wrist. I wore long sleeves everywhere to hide my bruised and scarred arms, no matter what the weather was like. I spent quite a bit of the money my grandparents gave me when I visited them at the senior home on makeup to hide my facial bruises.

He chose not to say anything about it and instead held out his hand to take my paper. He read over it and his face lit up when he saw my next class was with him. "Yay! I have you as a student!"

"Yeah," I muttered with a smile. He looked at me and grinned wider, causing my own smile to grow.

We'd had a conversation over the teachers, the students, his own teachers in the past, and why he wanted to teach. It felt weird. I hadn't had a conversation with someone for much longer than ten minutes in a long time. But I decided that he was my favorite teacher that I'd ever had pretty quickly.

Today, there was an assembly for the football game tonight against our biggest rival. I was tempted to ask Danny if we could just stay in his room the whole time. I'm sure he would be totally fine with it, knowing how I was treated by other students, but obviously, he had to bring the homeroom into the gym. We could sit anywhere, surprisingly, but the teachers had to sit together. Out of all the schools I'd attended, none of them had pep rallies like this.

We were one of the first homerooms to get to the gym, with only a few other homerooms there. Danny sat in the front row next to a couple other teachers. He looked back at me and gave me a sympathetic smile, looking tempted to get up and sit with me.

He was sitting at the end of the front column. I would've sat at the beginning of the column next to him, which would've been in the same row, but I hated being in the front. So I went to the very last row and sat at the beginning of the bench. I didn't want to be in the corner, either.

The large gym quickly filled, and soon, I could no longer see Danny over all the people. I sat still, looking at my shoes.

A voice caused me to jump. "Are these seats taken?"

I looked up into light brown eyes. In front of me stood an Asian boy about a half foot taller than me with blonde hair, accompanied by a tall, tan girl with short brown hair and a similar face, hinting at the possibility that they were related, and an incredibly tall boy -over a foot taller than me at the very least- with greasy, jet black hair that went to his shoulders, a face with lots of acne scars and still a trace of acne on it, and eyes a bright, seemingly growing green color that inspected me with a look that said he recognized me.

"N-no, you c-c-can sit there," I muttered to the one who spoke to me. He grinned and took a seat next to me, the boy sitting next to him and the girl looking for somewhere else to sit.

"I'm Simon. We just moved here, so we don't really know anyone yet," the blonde informed me.

"I-I'm Chloe," was all I managed to get out.

"That's Derek," Simon pointed to the guy who sat beside him. Derek's eyes lifted to meet mine, recognition clear in them. His eyes softened as he studied me. I felt uncomfortable under his intense gaze. Did he really recognize me?

Derek grunted before returning his eyes to the gym floor. I blushed slightly and glanced back to Danny. I could see him now that most students had sat down. As if he felt my eyes on the back of his head, he turned around and looked up.

His eyes soon found me, and although we were far apart, I could see his shoulders slump in relief, as if he had been worried that I would be surrounded by my bullies. He gave me a smile that I returned for a couple of seconds before I felt a stare that made my skin crawl. My eyes left Danny's and glance around before finding Brent Davis staring at me, a knowing look in his eyes. The stare he was sending my way was also a bit creepy.

He had caught Danny and me's interaction. He knew I ate lunch with him as well. I knew Brent suspected something between us.

Brent Davidson was the type of guy I would have developed a crush on my freshman year. He seemed innocent and nice and was really good looking and all, but he was just the opposite.

I'd observe him flirt with one girl, acting like a nice guy one day. The next day, I'd find him trying to make a girl feel uncomfortable with his words. It reminded me of Liam Malloy from the school I went to for my freshman year, and of Royce Banks from half of my sophomore year that I spent in a different city.

Although Liam Malloy never really targeted me, Royce had tried to play the nice guy on me. When he realized I had no interest, he started to try to make me feel uncomfortable. Every school had a Royce Banks, and at Buffalo High, the 'Royce Banks' was Brent.

Brent mouthed something to me, but I wasn't quite sure what. Fortunately, before I could do anything, all the power went out and thunder boomed louder than I'd ever heard it boom in my entire life.

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** Well, it's 4:12 in the morning. I think I'm done. **

** Although having Liam or Royce be the creepy dude in the story is always fun, I think it's something a lot of people do, so I decided to make the creepy dude in the story Brent. Remember Brent from the beginning of The Summoning? Yeah. I chose him. **

** I know I didn't put a disclaimer at the beginning but I think it's safe to say you guys know I don't own DP. **

** I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Have a nice day. Or don't. Whatever. **


	2. Chapter 2

Ok. I ended that last chapter a little cheesily. I don't think cheesily is a word, but I'm going with it. Also, if you want to improve your life, buy BBQ flavored goldfish crackers.

If you guys don't remember Brent, he's the guy Chloe had a "crush" on at the beginning of The Summoning. I know he's not like how he was in the book, but hey. He wasn't a big character. It's not that big of a deal.

Thank you for enjoying my little story enough to click the 'next' thingy at the bottom of chapter one.

Thank you all for reviewing, too. Y'all's reviews made my little heart sing. And it's great to know you care, GigglingFangirl 3. I appreciate that.

I also have a Tumblr now! Yay!

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Chapter Two: Storms Suck

Teenage girls screamed their heads off in horror as the room went completely dark. I only jumped at the sudden sound. I could only imagine Danny rolling his eyes and face-palming at the high pitched screams that sounded like something out of a horror movie with actors that were more horrifyingly bad than the movie itself.

"Please, calm down, would you?"

The principal's voice was loud and clear, which meant we had finally gotten wireless microphones. If only Danny had one in his room. His voice was rather quiet, and sometimes I struggled to hear him from the corner of the large room. Wait, how did I get to thinking about Danny? I needed to focus on the principal and hope he would send us back to homerooms. I hated the hot, stuffy gym.

"Quiet down! Please, students, quiet down! My goodness, it's only a thunderstorm!"

Simon muttered, "I'm gonna start screaming as soon as it gets quiet just to annoy him."

"Because that's a mature thing for a 17 year old to do, right?" Derek questioned.

"I was joking, bro. Chill."

Derek sighed. By then, most of the noise had gone down. After a couple of minutes, the principal spoke up.

"You all are soon to be, if not already, adults. I expect more out of you. You shouldn't have started screaming in the the first place, let alone kept the volume up for so long. It's time for you guys to grow up and act your age."

There was a pause of silence before we all heard a male student yell ,"You go, Glen Coco," and several students erupted in laughter. Being as obsessed with movies as I am, I recognized the line, but didn't laugh along.

"STOP," Yelled Mr. Huff. The laughter died immediately. He was easily able to scare students with his voice, and most kids didn't want to make him too angry.

"Alright, students. Let's grow up now. We're big kids now. We shouldn't have to be told twice.

"Anyway, as you all can clearly tell, we've lost power. Since you've proven you can't handle yourself with all of your friends in the gym, we will be dismissing for homerooms once all teachers and staff have finished lighting candles and placing flashlights around so you can see in the hallways that have no windows.

"Please, behave yourselves when we return to the gym. The storm will have cleared out by the end of the school day, so we will most likely still be having the game. Hopefully, the power will return soon. "

Once it seemed Mr. Huff was done talking, the students started to talk again, only not as loud. My gaze dropped to Danny, who was leaving the room, conversing with Mrs. Lowe. She was an older lady in her late fifties. Danny gave a quick glance behind his shoulder, and I felt my face heat up, frightened at the thought of being caught staring.

When I glanced back at him, he was holding the gym door open for Mrs. Lowe, but his eyes were directed in my direction, an odd look on his face. I turned to Simon, only to find him staring back at Danny. Shortly after, Danny had left the room.

I wanted to ask him if he knew why we didn't just stay in the gym but then I realized that he'd been a teacher here for a shorter time than I had been a student here. Danny probably didn't know why.

"Hey, Chloe, do know a Rae Rodgers?" Simon asked me suddenly.

"She g-g-goes h-here. But I d-don't h-h-have classes with her," I replied. She was rude and obnoxious. She was one of the better known students at Buffalo High because she always threw parties that were, according to other students, some of the best parties in New York.

She made fun of me a lot, but I wasn't the only person she ridiculed. She tried to offend anyone who she didn't like. She found the most pathetic reasons to dislike anybody-their haircut, their weight, their sex life (or lack of one, for people like me), their height, their abilities, how smart they were, their appearance, their interests... The list went on forever.

If Simon, Derek, and Simon's sister all came from another Buffalo located school, they'd at least heard of Rae. I wasn't surprised he was asking.

"Oh. I'd heard of her. I just wondered if she still went here or not."

Derek turned to Simon. "Already searching for a girlfriend when you broke up with the last one less than a week ago?"

Simon rolled his eyes. "Courtney was crazy. We didn't even have to be in a relationship for a week for me to realize that."

Derek just snorted and returned to looking at the gym floor. "Why are they taking so long?"

"It's a big school, bro." Simon turned to face Derek. "Just because you have the longest legs in the world, doesn't mean all the teachers do. They aren't as fast as you. They'll be done soon."

Derek grunted, shifting his attention to me. His eyes were set on mine, observing my face slowly, causing my face to be decorated with a blush. A boy was staring at me, and that was a rare thing. At least, it was rare for them to look at me without a disgusted or mocking look in their cold eyes.

Derek nudged Simon and I looked away, but not before hearing him mumble my name. Derek's voice was so deep, I could've sworn I felt it vibrating.

Soon after, Simon and Derek became absorbed in their own quiet conversation, and I became absorbed in my own thoughts about the taller one of the two.

Derek's behavior and actions confused me. It seemed like he knew me, but I couldn't remember him no matter how hard I tried. I would think Simon would remember me as well, if his foster brother did, but it was clear Simon didn't. It was possible Simon just didn't remember me, like I didn't remember Derek.

I was making too big of a deal out of this, but I was determined to find out just where from Derek could recognize me. It felt like there was something there. I hated that I had no clue why I felt like this. Could it be my overactive imagination? Was I thinking too much?

My eyes met Derek's for a second. The green color seemed familiar. I'd seen someone with that eye color before. I knew it. And I had a really bad feeling from it.

There was no way I was overreacting

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As I got settled in my seat in homeroom, a few others in the classroom as well, I tried digging into my memories as far as I could go. It was useless. I knew I recognized Derek- or rather, something about Derek -and it was extremely frustrating when I realized I didn't know where from.

He obviously knew me. I wished I could figure out as much as he did.

Danny's voice interrupted my thoughts. "Good Lord, does Mr. Huff always make you guys go back to homeroom in the dark? I know, this is my first year and all, but I don't think I've ever heard of a school who made their students go back to homerooms in darkness, making the teachers place candles and flashlights along wherever to guide you back. It's weird."

"Mr. Huff is a lonely old man who hates his life and has a weird head. He wanted us all to go away so he wouldn't have to get a headache from our talking," a student spoke up. A couple of kids muttered their agreements.

Danny nodded. "Ah. I see. Just so you know, I'd appreciate it if you guys kept our homeroom conversations in homeroom only. Whatever comes out of my mouth had better not be told to Mr. Huff."

"Gosh, Mr. Howell, you're such a chicken," said Cody, the guy who sat next to me.

Danny laughed at that, as well as a few other students. The classroom was starting to fill up.

Danny replied to Cody,"I brought chicken for lunch. Does that make me a cannibal?"

I snorted unintentionally, and the girl in front of me turned around.

Liz Delaney's pale blue eyes assessed me, giving me a harsh look. "Did you seriously just snort?"

"I-I..." I took a deep breath, hoping my stutter would go away, and tried to speak a bit slower. "I didn't actually m-mean to."

"That's disgusting. You literally sounded like a pig-"

"Alright, Elizabeth, we get it. Chloe snorted. I've heard that you snort. Just, well, you know, not in that sense," said Danny. He had made his way over to return a book to the book shelf, and muttered that to her as he stood by me. I felt a blush creep onto my face as what he said sank in, and Liz glared at him before turning back around.

Danny gave me a smile, patting the top of my head twice before returning to his desk.

Liz Delaney was, from what I collected over my time at the school, previously one of the nicest people on the planet. She had been friendly, loving, accepting, openminded, gentle, calm, welcoming, caring, and over all a good person with only good intentions. It seemed like nobody could dislike her after just a few minutes of being around her.

When she entered the eighth grade, Liz started dating a guy named Brady Hirsch. Brady seemed like a good guy. He was the school's favorite; all his teachers loved him, he played lots of sports, he was funny, and he was pretty attractive.

Liz had liked him for a long time. When they started dating, everything went great. However, when they were entering their freshman year, Brady had sex with a girl going into the eighth grade upon a dare. Liz hadn't found out until a few months later. Somehow, it had made her so angry that she broke up with him, ended up yelling at the girl, treated everyone differently, and changed who she was.

I obviously wouldn't ask for private information like that. But if heard people talk about it. I'd always wondered why Liz was so hard on me, harder than most people, and that might just be an answer, I'm going to eavesdrop. I felt bad, but I wanted to know.

After listening to people telling her story, I felt even worse about it. She had been broken by what Brady had done. He broke her trust, and she ended up completely changing into a different person. She'd become more careful with who she put her trust in, pushing several of the people she'd been friends with before away. Liz started hanging out with the bad people. She became someone who I was sure that her old self would've stayed away from.

I wished I could tell Danny off for saying something like that. He didn't know Liz very well, but I knew he didn't like her. We'd had a conversation over her before, and he'd made it very clear he didn't like her. However, that didn't mean he had to get all sassy and say things teachers probably shouldn't say.

Soon after, Derek entered the room. He sat to my right, his eyes assessing Danny. Danny sensed Derek's eyes and turned to face him. "Ah, you must be my new homeroom student. I'm Mr. Howell. You're Derek, right? Derek Brown?"

He nodded in reply.

"Alright then. This, to your left, is Chloe. I looked through your schedule. All of your classes except for gym will be with her. I'm sure Chloe can show you where to go if you need help." Danny turned to me. "You still meet with me at lunch." After a couple of seconds, he added, "I mean, you don't have to. Only if you want to. You can eat wherever."

For a second I was sure there was a blush on his cheeks. But I blinked and it disappeared. "Yeah. I-I'll be coming here."

"Great. I'm getting pizza."

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Yes. I ruined Liz. At least now I think I know some of what I'm doing with this.

Hopefully I can have chapter three in a couple of weeks.


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